Maynard, MA, USA: Beacon-Villager newspaper column on local history, observations on nature and recreational activities, plus an occasional health-related article. Columns from 2009-11 collected into book "MAYNARD: History and Life Outdoors." Columns from 2012-14 collected into book "Hidden History of Maynard." - David A. Mark

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Wednesday, February 25, 2015

There are winters wherein February sees the first snowdrops
and crocuses of spring, but it is not this year. There are years wherein the
first returning robins are already arriving, but it is not this year. There are
years the snow blower goes untouched, the snowmobile trailered to Maine, but not this
year. This year we struggle against the white, the ever recurring, ever piling
higher snows of the winter of 2014-15. By all that you hold dear on this frozen
earth, you must shovel, women and men of Massachusetts.

WINTER 2015: Fence is six feet tall. Click on any photo to enlarge

This winter's snow totals ended with a new
record for Boston, close for Worcester. These two cities, each
with 125 years of weather data, average 44 and 64 inches, respectively. Previously, the
snowiest winter on record for both cities was 1995-96, at 107.6 and 132.9
inches. As of April 15, 2015, Boston tallied 110.6 inches and Worcester
119.7 inches, making it now Boston's snowiest winter in recorded history. Worcester finished at third snowiest. (Interestingly, 2011-12 was the 2nd least snowiest for Boston, with 9.3 inches.)

Snowfall measurement methods are described in great detail
in a 14 page document from the National Weather Service. Briefly, if snow is
falling continuously, depth in the measuring device is measured every six
hours, the device emptied and set out again. This maximizes measurement for large storms because it reduces the compression effect of late snow piling up on early snow.

One reason for the records being set this winter is that all snow is not created equal. Wet snow
means 6-8 inches convert to one inch of water, but the northeasters that have
been repeatedly sweeping through our area have been cold enough to generate
powdery snow that is averaging 17-18 inches per inch of water. Telling here is
that the thirty days of storms that put so much snow on the ground will in time
melt to only five inches of water - above average for this time of year but in no way record
setting.

Other reasons are meteorological. Weather forecasting
professionals toss about terms such as North Atlantic Oscillation, the
"Ridiculously Resilient Ridge" and Polar Vortex. The net
result was that over a short period of time the storms were colder, larger, and
every storm dumped on eastern Massachusetts,
with little melting between storms. February 2015 was Boston's second coldest on record. For the entire month, an average of 18.8 (F) and only three days had a high temperature above freezing.

ICICLE: Estimated at ten feet and 100-150 pounds

Whatever happened to global warming? The short answer is
that New England is getting wetter faster than
it is getting warmer. For Boston,
over a 120 year period the average temperature has gotten one degree (F)
warmer, but 10 percent wetter. As a result, winter is two weeks shorter, but
six of the top ten snowiest winters have occurred in the last 22 years. As storms
track up the east coast the warmer (and thus wetter) air over the ocean blows inland over/atop cold air, resulting in more snow.

At some point in the future the temperature trend will mean more winters of
wet snow, sleet, ice storms and rain. Portland,
Maine has already experienced the
crossover: weather records dating back to 1870 show two degrees of warming, a
15 percent increase in total precipitation, but a decrease in annual snowfall
from 75 to 65 inches. When it comes, the crossover will affect Boston before it impacts the inland cities
and towns.

On closer parsing of snowfall records, the less snow trend is already showing up in Boston. but intermittently. The 40 years from 1975 to present contain 7 of 10 of the snowiest winters (over 75 inches) AND 8 of 10 of the least snowiest winters (under 20 inches).

The first paragraph of this column was a riff on the "But
it is not this day" pre-battle speech in The Lord of the Rings: The Return
of the King. Other fictional pre-battle speeches to outnumbered, underdog
troops include those from movies Braveheart and Independence Day, and the
progenitor of them all, the St. Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's play,
Henry V. That speech gave us five repeats of "...this day..." and
also the line "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers..."

The Lord
of the Rings/The Return of the King (Lord Aragorn speaking)

Sons of
Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers!
I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me.
A day may come when the courage of Men fails,
When we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship,
But it is not this day.
An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Man comes crashing down,
But it is not this day!
This day we fight!
By all that you hold dear on this good earth,
I bid you stand, Men of the West!

Henry V
(King Henry V speaking)

What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

The inheritance laws of Great Britain, source of the majority of
immigrants to the northern colonies during the "Great Migration" of
1620-1640, were based on primogeniture - inheritance of land by the oldest son.
(In the absence of sons, daughters would inherit, but the practice of the day
was to keep plugging away until a male heir and a spare were produced.) Younger
sons joined the military, the Church, took up a trade, or sought their fortune
elsewhere.

In Massachusetts Bay Colony and the other northern colonies
the practice of multigeniture - dividing the family property among several
children, took hold. Early landowners in expansion towns, such as Sudbury (established
1639) were granted more land than they could manage. As time passed, the land
could be divvied amongst several sons, the oldest oft times getting the largest
share. Economically, 30 acres was about as small as possible for a functional
farmstead, so land was rarely divided into smaller bits unless a site also
encompassed a trade - for example, a mill, smithy or tavern.

The colonies also saw the practice of ultimogeniture -
whence the youngest child (son or married daughter) stayed to inherit the
household, including care of the aging parents, while allowing older sons opportunity
to succeed elsewhere. This practice thrived when there was a surplus of land
and a system of official expansion. John Maynard, for example, was one of the
early landowners in Sudbury, in the 1640s; his oldest
son was one of the early settlers of the new town of Marlborough in 1660. Five generations later,
Amory Maynard left Marlborough for AssabetVillage, and was buying land from the
Smiths.

THE MEN OF THE SMITH FAMILY (see below for wives' maiden names)

John Smith (1622-1687), another early settler in Sudbury, was a
contemporary of John Maynard. [John was a very common first name - 21 of the 76
men who settled originally Sudbury
went by it.] Smith came over in 1638. Sudbury History Society records have him
swearing the Oath of Loyalty in 1645 and marrying Sarah Hunt in 1647. When Sudbury was extended north to the AssabetRiver,
he was among the men getting a 130 acre lot.

There is an interesting note in A.S. Hudson's History of Sudbury 1638-1889 wherein Smith and four other men were granted the right to operate a saw mill on Hop Brook, with the caveat that they not retain water behind a dam or operate the mill between the middle of April and the first of September. The intent here was that whatever water was entering the brook should pass through for the use by downstream farmers.

Asa Smith, one of Haman's sons,
sold this house on Summer Hill Road
to Amory Maynard in 1846

John Smith's land went to youngest son,
Thomas, and in turn to his youngest son, Amos, and in turn to his two youngest
sons, Benjamin and Jonathan. Benjamin left a farmstead to his youngest son,
Haman. Haman broke the pattern by deeding farms to each of his four sons, but by then (circa 1850) all the nearby new land had been settled.

As noted in last week's column on the oldest houses in
Maynard, by the late 1700s, when this area was still part of Sudbury
and Stow, the
Smiths were buying more land and building substantial houses along Great Road (now
Route 117). Two generations later the Smiths were still a major presence in
what was becoming the fast growing AssabetVillage, selling land to
Amory Maynard and his partner William Knight, and signing one of the petitions
to create the new town that came to be named Maynard in 1871. Glenwood cemetery
holds graves of at least 60 Smiths, and there are dozens of people with last
name Smith living in Maynard today. It's a good bet that some of them are
direct descendants of the John Smith who crossed the Atlantic 377 years ago.

Trying to trace immigrant John Smith's genealogy upstream
gets very murky very quickly. It appears that in Watertown,
the parent town for Sudbury,
there were two John Smiths, one at times going by the name John Bland. Both are
mentioned as being the father of the John Smith who moved to Sudbury.

Using the Smith (not-Bland) genealogy, the ancestors are another John, another John, then William Smith,
a resident of Stratford-on-Avon at about William Shakespeare's time, but apparently
not the William Smith who was godfather to Shakespeare. ( I said it was murky.)

WIVES' MAIDEN NAMES

All the genealogy to this point is about men named Smith, as the bulk of records (and inheritances) are patrilineal. Here is what is available for the women they married:

The Lucy Maynard who married Benjamin Smith was not a known relative of Amory Maynard. One of the puzzlements here is there are better birth and death dates for the 1600s and 1700s than for those who were alive in the 1800s. Also, there is a monument in Glendale Cemetery for Benjamin F. Smith, 1844-1877 that mentions wife Ellen and two children who died very young. No idea if this B. Smith descends from those listed above.

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Maynard's oldest buildings still standing were not the
oldest built. Modest farmsteads located along the roads connecting the older
towns of Concord, Sudbury,
Stow and Marlborough
were torn down and replaced with larger homes as the original settlers prospered.
Later, with the advent of the paper, gunpowder and wool mills, houses close to
the center of Assabet Village (not yet officially Maynard) were replaced by
mill worker housing. More old farmsteads were lost when the government seized
most of southern Maynard for Army use as a munitions depot during World War II.

What remains is a scattering of upper middle-class homes,
some once owned by descendants of John Smith (1622-1687). John came from England to the
colonies in 1638. Nine years later he was married and living in Sudbury. Our lineage of
interest is John to Thomas to Amos, then to two of Amos' six children -
Benjamin and Jonathan - and their children and grandchildren. Note that 'named'
houses are not always named after the original owners.

Georgian style with two chimneys, High Street, Acton

Descriptions of houses built in the late 1700s can wax
eloquent about Georgian or the subsequent, more decorative, Federalist style of
architecture, but the core of both designs is a rectangular 2.5 story house, five windows wide, two windows deep, centered front door, and either a large
central chimney or twin chimneys. Each chimney has more than one fireplace in
service of different rooms, including upstairs rooms. Windows are small and
multi-pane. Additions are common, sometimes extending so as to link the house
to what had been a separate barn or carriage house. (A style known as New
England Connected Farm.)

William Smith House, 206-208 Great Road
(1780): First owner not known, but William Smith (Benjamin's son) lived there a
long time. In 1892 the Town of Maynard
purchased it for an almshouse. According to one history, "Here, Maynard's
indigents and transients were fed and housed. Those who were able-bodied labored
on the 20 acre town farm to produce food for themselves and other needy
townspeople. They also chopped wood to heat the schools and other public
buildings." The farmland is now the MaynardHigh School
athletic field.

Levi Smith House, 178 Great Road
(1770): Central chimney and later additions. It was built for Jonathan Smith
and then sold to his son Levi in 1810. After the Great Road bridge over the AssabetRiver was built in 1816, Levi operated
his house as a tavern - the Red Fox Inn - until his death in 1848.

The dark
brown house two houses to the west, sporting a sign, "The Orchard,"
dates to 1810, its ownership going from Jonathan to another son, Noah.
Ownership of the land the house is on dates back to Thomas Smith, Jonathan's
grandfather.

George Smith House, 38 Great Road
(1785): First owner not known, but
George lived here next door to his father Haman, who was at 36 Great Road (built 1835). That house
went from Haman to another son - Benjamin - who was named after Haman's father.
Both houses started as Federal style, with five windows across the front over a
centered door, plus many subsequent additions and outbuildings. The BenSmithBridge (1816) was named
after the first Benjamin while the nearby Ben Smith Dam (1846), built for the
wool mill, was named after the second
Benjamin, his grandson.

Click on photos to enlarge

Asa Smith House, 84 Summer Hill Road (1780): There is a
dispute here, as there are claims for 1780, but the plaque on the house reads
circa 1820. Asa lived in this house and owned the dam and mill, which was used
for grinding grain, pressing cider and sawing lumber. This house was the first
place Amory Maynard lived when he moved to AssabetVillage.
Along with the house, Maynard bought the water usage rights, then had much of
the river's volume diverted via a canal to the mill pond for his new wool mill.
Before Asa Smith, the mill, if not the house, had been owned by Joseph Jewell
and then his son John, and was known as "Jewell's Mill" from 1694 to
1815.

And the oldest: Silas P. Brooks House, 88-90 Summer Street (1764): Georgian
style architecture, with a large central chimney and many subsequent additions.
It was built for Luke and Lucy (Wheeler) Brooks. Luke was in the Stow militia company that marched to Concord the morning of April 19, 1775; he
later served as a Private in the Revolutionary War. His son SilasBrooks
and Silas' son Silas Potter Brooks (1815-1888), inherited the house. Silas P.
was one of the signers of the 1871 petition to form the Town of Maynard (as were two
other Brooks and seven Smiths).

The Brooks family owned lots of land on the
north side of Maynard, including what became Brooks Street. Charles Brooks was the first resident of my house. A deed in the county courthouse shows A&L Maynard Company
selling the property to Charles Brooks in 1870 for $2,430. The 1870 U.S. Census described him as a 56 year old widower working at a saw mill, with four teenage daughters. While digging a garden bed we found a small glass bottle that had held "Bachelor's No. 1 Liquid Hair Dye." Perhaps Mr. Brooks was darkening his grey hair in the hopes of finding a second wife.

Honorable mention: the house at 101 Summer Street is part
brick construction. The one story brick portion, painted white and close to the
road, was District #5 school house for Stow, completed prior to 1789 (possibly
as early as 1766?) and in operation as a school until 1872. Many of the town's
founding families sent their children there, including Amory Maynard.